Oxidation-Induced CH Functionalization: A Formal Way for CH Activation

Cross-coupling reactions have developed widely and provided a powerful means to synthesize a variety of compounds in each chemical field. The compounds which have CH bonds are widespread in fossil fuels, chemical raw materials, biologically active molecules, etc. Using these readily- available substances as substrates is high atom- and step-economy for cross-coupling reactions. Over the past decades, our research group focused on finding and developing new strategies for CH functionalization. Compared with classical CH activation methods, for example, CH bonds are deprotonated by strong base or converted into CM bonds, oxidation-induced CH functionalization would be another pathway for CH bond activation. This perspective shows a brief introduction of our recent works in this oxidation-induced CH functionalization. We categorized this approach of these CH bond activations by the key intermediates, radical cations, radicals and cations.